Part 1 of last month’s Album Spotlight covered the fascinating details behind the 1970 album Truth. In this, Part 2 of my interview with Truth’s Michael DeGreve, we cover life in the late 1960s, DeGreve’s Gypsy’s Lament solo album, and what he’s up to today.
Peter: In 1969 you were around 20. What was it like growing up in the 60’s in California as a young man? Was it really peace and love and all that?
Michael: “Yes, (laughs) it was.”
Peter: You know what they say- If you can remember the 60s, you weren’t really there.
Michael: “I know. I was going to slip one of those lines in…Yeah, there was a lot of that going on. I always tell this story and the younger people look at me like I’m from Mars. Yeah, I did get drunk with Janis Joplin in the studio. I did drop LSD with Jimi Hendrix at The Whiskey [a Go Go]. I was an all-American basketball player in high school. My last semester I started going to The Whiskey. I would see bands like The Doors when they were the opening act.
“I was working at the LA Times on the editorial staff, a glorified copy boy, but I did some rock reviews. I was kind of like in both worlds and this opportunity came up to quit my job at the LA Times, not go back to college, and join a rock n’ roll band called The Lid. My poor mom (laughs). The next thing you know, things started happening. The Lid didn’t stay together. The guy I was in the band with, his name was Bob Smith, and if you go up to YouTube or whatever, there’s an album called The Visit…Daryl Dragon from The Captain and Tennille’s on it, Don Preston from Frank Zappa’s band [The Mothers of Invention]. That album is a double psychedelic album and it’s got wings. If you can find that one out there it’s quite a bit of money to get it…the back cover, me in a hat. We were all pretty high for some of those sessions. Yeah, it was just those days.”
Peter: You were a real hippie back in the 60s.
Michael: “I was. I was. You know, I was always a hippie with some governors on me, Peter…I had a brief psychedelic era until I got into eastern philosophy and [Paramahansa] Yogananda. Every hippie worth his salt had a copy of an autobiography of a yogi. I was peripheral…but that’s what it was. Yeah, we all smoked pot and preached love and free love. All that stuff’s true until crazy Charlie Manson made everybody afraid of hippies. It was a glorious couple of years.”
Peter: I was born in the late 60s so I missed all of that. Maybe I was a result of it.
Michael: “My lady’s quite a bit younger than I am. When I do my shows…and it surprises me, Peter, how many young people, when I do all these Eagles or Neil Young [songs]. Neil and I, we did a big benefit together at Cheyenne after a terrible flood. The Governor asked me to put on a show and I called Neil. But how much those days mean something. Bob Dylan’s kid, Jacob, just did a thing I saw on HBO called Echo’s from The Canyon which is all songs by The Byrds, The Turtles, Buffalo Springfield, and in that two-episode thing from Laurel Canyon, there’s a real nostalgia, a real interest in that era of LA rock ‘n’ roll. Which I think [that’s] how Truth got to Jay’s attention because that’s kind of what [Sundazed Records does], lost things from that era. I was shocked beyond belief when all this started in November [2023] (laughs).
Peter: If I get too personal, just tell me to shut up, but since we’re talking about that period, did you burn your draft card or go to Canada?
Michael: “No worries. No, no…That seed had already been planted, Peter…I’m an asthmatic. I have pretty bad asthma. Not being in college, I went back and went to work for the LA Times. My number came up and I went down to the draft board. I can’t remember, 1Y, or what the designation was, but there but for fortune, I would’ve gone over and done that.
“I’ll tell you one quick story: On the new record that I’ve just started, it’s an old song now because I wrote it in Cheyenne. I just haven’t recorded all these songs yet, but I’m starting now. Cheyenne got around to dedicating a memorial in a park to all the guys who served in Vietnam and the Vietnam Vets motorcycle club asked me if I would write a song for them. I said, ‘Guys, I’d be more than flattered, but it’s my era, it’s my war, but I wasn’t there. They said, ‘Michael, we know, but we trust you’. The day of the dedication, the TV and all that stuff, and the mayor, and I played the song, and 200 brothers on Harleys showed up. A guy I knew pretty well named Big John walked straight up to me and…I thought, “Oh God, I’m going to get killed’, and he started crying and started hugging me. I had 200 bikers kissing me. [The song’s] called ‘American Soldier’. There’s a lot of songs with similar titles. I wrote this way before Toby Keith’s… I have absolute respect for everyone that serves this great country and I just hate war. There you go.”
Peter: Staying with the personal questions, your ex-wife became an actress. How did you meet her?
Michael: “My ex-wife, Susan, I met her…I never told this story. When the Truth album came out, we did a concert [at the Hollywood Palladium] with a bunch of the bands from that time [Blue Cheer, Flash Cadillac, The Continental Kids]. We did a TV show in Palm Springs called The Visual Girls. It was just a…teenage girls, fashion and all that. That was Susan…17-year-old Susan Sennett. She went on to do some movies. She did one called Big Bad Mama with Angie Dickenson and William Shatner, the cover of 17 [Magazine], did a bunch of national commercials. We split up [after] about 4 or 5 years and she met [Graham] Nash and they were together 38 years.”
Peter: Didn’t I hear somewhere that Susan called you up while Graham Nash was in her bathtub?
Michael: “That’s exactly the truth (laughs). It was my Birthday. I was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and she called. We almost got back together, but I went on the road and I’ve got these gigs I’m doing. She called and said, ‘Mike, I just want to wish you a happy Birthday. There’s actually someone in the bathtub that would like’…I said, ‘Okay.’ It was the house we lived in. I said, ‘I’m game.’ We weren’t together anymore. It’s not my business. He said, ‘Hey, Michael, it’s Graham.’ I went, ‘Nash’ (laughs)? He said, ‘Yeah, man, I’m just letting you know Suze and I are seeing each other. When will you be coming in to LA?’ He picked me up at the airport. He’s just a consummate English gentleman. We’ve always been friends. A great friend.
“When I went to visit the two of them in Hawaii in the mid-80s which was when my Gypsy’s Lament album started, I played him a couple of songs. He said, ‘Well, what do you want to do? Do you want to go golfing or do you want to go in the studio?’ There’s a picture on my website of he and I in shorts around his recording equipment when we started it. He’s just a great friend. I love him.
“When I was in high school, he was in The Hollies. They wrote songs like [sings] Hey, Carrie Anne, and ‘Bus Stop’ was a big hit. He’s in the Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame twice, so it was really fun for me to get to record with him. Just a great time.“
Peter: You’ve mentioned your Gypsy’s Lament CD several times. Tell me more about it.
Michael: “I did an album about 30 years ago. It was my first solo album. The only person I think on it that’s not in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame is me (Peter laughs). Graham Nash is on it. Randy Meisner, bass player in The Eagles…Jackson Browne’s band, great bass player, Leeland Sklar, and David Milley. It’s never had a national release…it’s never been on all the [streaming] services, and now I think Jay at Sundazed [Records] wants to do it. But to my mind, it’s the record I’m known for.
“[Jay] got a hold of me yesterday. He said, ‘Hey, I’ve been working on Gypsy’s Lament.’ He said, ‘Boy, the recording doesn’t need much.’ I said, ‘I know’. It was done in the best studio in LA [Soundcastle Studios] with Graham Nash’s producer. I’m really hoping he’s going to do that, get it on all the [streaming] services. I’ve got a lot of people that’ve got their fingers crossed. “When we did Gypsy’s Lament in Graham’s House in Hawaii, that picture of us in shorts, it was such a great afternoon. He was my harmony hero. You know, it’s just weird he was married to my ex-wife. He’s always been one of my favorite musicians ever. I was feeling so saucy by the time we got done recording, I think I actually asked him to produce my record. He said, ‘No, Michael, it’s not what I do…but I’ll tell you who will and who is going to.’ The next thing I knew, Don Gooch flew out, set me up a bedroom studio, I cut demos, and Don, and one guy who ended up being a [arranger] on that was named Jeff Boydston. I literally had to take time off my Hitching Post gig in spurts to get out and do the sessions. It wasn’t like I was in LA.
“I don’t know if you saw any of this, but the Gypsy’s album…when it came out, I didn’t have a label, and it was big regionally, but I sold them all off stage and everything…Wyoming’s a big oil and gas place. These guys from Russia were coming in all the time. It was 1991 and the Soviet Union had just broken up and the wall was coming down. They said (imitating a Russian accent), ‘Misha, you must come, you must come to Moscow. You play the Opera House. We’re going to do a film and you’ll be one of the first Americans ever to play the big festival in Belarus for all of eastern Europe and Russia.’ So, my lawyer looked at the contracts and the next thing I knew I was on a plane to Moscow and it was everything he said. I got off the plane and my songs off Gypsy were on the radio with Garth Brooks and Madonna…It’s all centralized there, Peter…All the radio and TV is like in one place, so I was going from one show to the other show to the other show. They did a TV thing and they did a film which I’ve got a VHS [tape] of and I’m thinking about trying to get, just for my friends that might care, putting it on a DVD. What an adventure that was. I’m old enough to have lived through Kennedy and Khrushchev and when we all had these things pointed at each other and I went over there and drank all their Vodka and made love to all their women and had a pretty good summer.” (laughs) That’s one of the craziest things that happened with the Gypsy’s album. It took me to Russia. I’m so thankful to have had that experience. It was just incredible.”
“…I did get drunk with Janis Joplin in the studio. I did drop LSD with Jimi Hendrix at The Whiskey [a Go Go].”
Peter: And you’re in Vegas now?
Michael: “I was.”
Peter: Oh, okay. You’re tough to keep up with! Where are you now?
Michael: “I’m in Grants Pass, Oregon [in] a little house just north of the California border. My wonderful lady, Kris, now we’re a duo, when we’re ready to do this, I’m about ready to launch a YouTube channel. I went out to Vegas after the whole Hitch [Hitching Post] thing collapsed. Two years back in Wisconsin up in lake country. It was too cold for me. I was done. Went to Vegas…I was 60-years old or whatever. What am I going to do? I’ll be darned. I got a house gig at a really cool place about 30-40 minutes from the strip up in the mountains called the Mt. Charleston Lodge. It was a place where everybody went in the summer because it was cool and beautiful, and everybody went in the winter because there’s all this snow and everybody would go and do all their stuff. I packed the place three nights a week the last 8 or 9 years I was there. Then I’d come down off the mountain and we’d go by the strip and all that stuff. Kris would try to drive around Vegas. ‘Michael, I hate it, I just hate Vegas, I hate it.’ And I love her, and boy was it hard for me to give up that house gig in Vegas, but I did. The guy I had worked for…good friend. I worked for him at The Pioneer…and he lives in Grants Pass. He was trying to get me up here for 4 years. He said, ‘Michael…what are you doing? Come up and visit. It’s all wineries…you’re going to love it’, la, dah, dah, dah. And I got up here and COVID shut everything down.
“Then, only going to a doctor once in fifty years caught me. I have prostate cancer and I was pretty sick. For a year I couldn’t even play guitar once, not once. Now I’m back at it. Starting to record a little bit. We’re rehearsing everyday getting ready for this show, and somehow, angels like you are just coming out of the cosmos to light fires under me to say, ‘Come on, man, you’ve got another chapter to do here.’ And if I have a gift, Peter, it’s putting love in the air when I do a show. I won’t do politics; I won’t do any of that stuff. I’ll sing ‘Imagine’ and ‘Peace Train’…and live shows are my gift. To have people come up and say, ‘Michael, you just made our night. You made our wedding.’ Whatever. It was such great magic and they’d come back. I’ve built a 30-year audience, but it’s what I love to do, and just getting back to that. So, I’m excited about it.”
Peter: You do what you love and you get paid for it. I mean, you can’t beat that.
Michael: “No. No, that’s that old thing…I used to do a lot of career days and things in Cheyenne, and I’m not the first to say it, but pick something you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.”
Peter: Do what you love and love what you do.
Michael: “That’s right, my brother.”
Peter: I’ve seen a few videos of your live stuff and your toasts (Michael laughs) and you’re definitely having fun and building a connection with your audience.
Michael: “Yeah, they’re all wearing that t-shirt with a toast on it (laughs). I saw that recently.”
Peter: So, what did I not ask you that I should have, or anything you want to say that we didn’t cover.
Michael: “Let me think for a minute. To be honest with you, my friend, I’ve really enjoyed this.”
Peter: Well, I’m sure you’ve been asked a lot of these questions a million times and you must get sick of it, but for me it’s fun.
Michael: “I honestly don’t. If people take the time like you to care enough about it, and it also gives me a chance to go back there in my mind with some of these things…
“Kris (yells)! Come out and say hi to Peter! I live with an angel. She sings like an angel. I’ve always been a solo. She plays nice guitar. We’ve got great two-part Crosby-Nash harmony kind of stuff…I’ve been working a lot of her songs even before mine.”
Peter: I think I’ve seen her in a couple of pictures.
Michael: “Yeah, beautiful long, blonde hair…Peter, this is my lady, Kris.”
Peter: Hi, Kris. Nice to meet you by phone!
Kris: “Hi, Peter. Nice to meet you by phone.”
Peter: You’ve got a Birthday coming up, Michael. How do you feel about that?
Michael: “Fine. Age doesn’t mean anything. It’s kind of funny. My sister said, ‘Your hair looks just like it did in ’68.’ I said, ‘Yeah, it’s a little thicker.’ She said, ‘I’ll betcha I know why. Because this cancer drug you’re taking, it’s a hormone suppressant thing (laughs).’ I get hot flashes and everything (laughs). I feel fine, Peter….I feel fine about being 76…the only thing I’m asking for, if it’s in God’s graces, to give me a little time to do some of this stuff and hang out with my puppies and my lady.”
Peter: What keeps you going? You’ve been doing this a long time. Obviously, you love it. I’m assuming you don’t have to do it. So, what keeps you going?
Michael: “Well, Mick & Keith, The Stones (Peter laughs), they are in their 80s and they’re on tour. Graham Nash, my friend, now living in New York. Graham’s on tour and he’s in his 80s. You know, if you’re blessed enough to do what we do, I’ve never taken it for granted, my friend, and I’m the happiest. I am…I love it. I love it. I’m not sure about not having to do it. I have a gorgeous home that’s paid for and a guitar collection that’s beyond my belief (laughs). I’ve never saved much, you know…but I love it. I’m excited right now. I’ve got all these songs and I’m trying to learn computer-based recording now. Us old analog hippie guys trying to learn some new tricks. I resisted it for a long time. But the truth of it is, that toys have gotten so good, I’ve got to learn. They’re wonderful, incredible. I get up in the morning and watch YouTube and I’ve got everything I need downstairs in my recording studio. You know, I can watch as many Dodgers and Lakers games up there, but does it make me as happy as music? No. Well, sometimes. When my Lakers are winning (laughs). The short answer is, I think if you’re blessed enough like I have been to do it for your life’s work and your living, what’s better? I love it. I love it.”
If you want the original vinyl pressing of Truth on People Records, it will cost you, especially if you want a sealed copy or one in mint condition. On the other hand, the Sundazed CD reissue costs $16.99 while the LP is $26.99 (link at the end). Unfortunately, there are no bonus tracks and the vinyl isn’t colored. In the spirit of the time, it would’ve been cool to have included a bonus track of one of the songs played backwards. It also would’ve been a great opportunity to press a limited edition, psychedelic-colored vinyl edition. Sundazed, if you’re paying attention, I’m available.
There are still hippies today even if they don’t dress the part, but the music and musical experimentation from that era is no longer practiced. I’m sure there are a lot of people who don’t even know what a sitar is. Truth is an entertaining snapshot of hippie philosophy and music. As the back of the album cover proclaims, “Truth is…Love…Beauty…Honesty…”, which we can all use a little of even 50 years on, and that’s the truth.
My eternal thanks to Michael DeGreve for being so generous with his time answering my questions. If you missed Part 1, read it here.
Trivia (from Wikipedia): Hippies: ”…originally a youth movement that began in the United States during or around 1964 and spread to different countries around the world. The word hippie came from hipster and was used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City’s Greenwich Village, San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, and Chicago’s Old Town community. The term hippie was used in print by San Francisco writer Michael Fallon, helping popularize use of the term in the media, although the tag was seen elsewhere earlier.”
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Michael DeGreve’s website: https://www.michaeldegreve.com/index.php
Sundazed: https://sundazed.com/truth.aspx